Martin Parker and I couldn't fish the Spratts match on Yew because we were in the Veterans' National on Lindholme, North Lincolnshire. But here's the result. fished on the East bank.
17 Dick Warrener 68 lb 5 oz 3rd
18 Grahan Ward 53 lb 11 oz
19 Bob Barrett 29 lb 3 oz
20 Trevor Cousins 23 lb 12 oz
22 John Garner 61 lb 4th
23 Dave Hobbs 58 lb 6 oz
24 Kevin Lee 19 lb 9 oz
25 Mick Ramm DNW
26 Peter Harrison 27 lb 10 oz
28 Mike Rawson 43 lb 14 oz
30 Roy Whitwell 97 lb 3 oz 2nd
Veterans' National, Lindholme
Honestly the best bit about this visit was the B&B we were in, at The River Don Tavern and Lodge. It's about 20 minutes North of Lindholme Fishery, where about 75 of us old, wise, and wrinkled anglers over the age of 65 were meeting the next day.
The room, which was extremely comfortable, cost us £80, with breakfast left in the room for us. That's fine since we wanted an early start, and Lindholme has a cafe. There was more breakfast than we needed. And we had an evening meal on the Tuesday - two main meals (more than we could eat); two deserts; and four drinks...less than £40. Brilliant value for money.
The match was less palatable. We'd watched a weigh-in on Bennies lake the previous afternoon, mainly pegged on one of the spits in the 50-60 area, and I was appalled at the weighing. The scales were at zero when the bag holding the fish was put on them, so every catch was overstated; perhaps they do this to increase the weights?
Fish were rolled down the net, and a big one was left flapping on the grass before it was weighed separately. Not for me!
On the day it was chaos for us because of the narrow access between Loco and Bennies, and since we both had a walk to our swims it was just as well that we had two motorised trollies in my little van; but they have to be dismantled to get them in, so we had to get all Martin's tackle out, assemble the trolley, and load it on the bank, among cars and vans trying to be parked. Then Martin had a 100 yard walk to his swim on Loco and I had to negotiate cars and vans to get nearer to my swim on Bennies.
My peg 39 on Bennies was only about an 80-yard walk, described to the angler on my right as being in on a part of the lake "where you've got no chance, mate!" Whoever said that was right. The bank was bare, and the margins inches deep, so no cover.
The fishery is stuffed with F1s so I tried shallow, with no fish at all, and eventually went into deepish water well out with corn for F1s, with a couple at the end on a feeder, and a total of 9 kilos (about 20 lb). The anglers to my left had 8 kilos and 7 kilos, while the angler on my right had a good half-hour spell when he had a few F1s on the feeder and weighed in 18 kilos. The angler on his right was one of just four in the match to not weigh in. Danny Sixsmith won the lake on one of the favoured pegs with 45 kilos, on worm at 2+1.
I would probably have done a little better if I'd used a feeder for longer, but I was fishing to win the lake, and thought my best bet was to concentrate on the pole. It's all ot nothing in a match like this.
Martin had 11 kilos on Loco lake but lost five big fish. However the angler on his right had 68 kilos, so Martin was not very happy. At least we got home unscathed. The match was won, as expected, on Strip Lake with 90 kilos-plus, one of many big weights taken on a short pole on maggot fished shallow, with F1s the main target.
It confirmed my view that we are so lucky to fish Decoy, where there's not a single area where an angler has no chance of doing well, whatever the conditions. And there are lots of proper carp there.
I was told that next year's match is at Westwood, near Boston. If that is the case we will travel separately so won't have to stuff everything into one van. Next match was on Six-Island - that write-up is coming up soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment